The
APOCALYPSE WOW
New Glasgow International director Sarah McCrory chats to visual artist Bedwyr Williams. Fresh from his success representing Wales at the Venice Biennale, he’ll be fi lling Tramway’s cavernous exhibition hall with a broken bus, some smoke and a fi lm about the end of the world
Sarah McCrory: Hey Bedwyr, what’s your new i lm about? Bedwyr Williams: It’s about an end of the world, or apocalyptic, scenario. I’ve always been interested in those kind of i lms but I think the i rst time I realised what it might actually be like in the UK was the fuel blockade in 2002/2003. I just remember the desperation; people were i lling buckets full of petrol and trying to carry it home before it evaporated. In Hollywood i lms that try to portray the apocalypse, they always show it in terms of an action story but I’m more interested in what it would be like in 25 Acacia Avenue when the trifi ds arrive: not where the main story is. It’s like the beginning of the Tom Cruise i lm War of the Worlds: the i rst half hour is great because it’s about the neighbourhood and all the people who live in New Jersey (or wherever he is). As soon as that’s over the i lm goes into the narrative, all the interesting stuff is done and it’s just action and i ghting and dying and stuff. But those street scenes are great: how society breaks down, minus the heroes.
12 THE LIST 20 Mar–17 Apr 2014
SM: How are you going to present the i lm in Tramway? BW: Everyone said that Tramway is very big. I looked at what other people had put there in the past and it occurred to me that a bus would be such a good thing to have. There’s something about a bus that says a lot about the breakdown of society: buses are used to get people in and out of strikes, both scabs and pickets.
I decided the i lm Echt should be shown in the luggage bay of the bus. You i nish a journey where everyone has been quite amiable onboard, then you go to get your stuff from underneath and everyone turns into coyotes at a car boot sale. It’s one of those moments where our veneer of gentility slips a little bit. The audience will sit on the suitcases that have been unloaded as a kind of mini rake of seating. And I think, I hope, that people are conditioned in such a way that sitting in that scenario will make them feel a little tense. It will remind them of being dropped off somewhere or waiting for their luggage.